


PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR 
OF ASHEVILLE JULY 28, 1902, 
UPON THE DEATH OF ^ ^ 



IbonoraWe 
Cbomas Dillard lobnston 



BEING THE RESOLUTIONS 
ADOPTED AND THE MEMO- 
RIAL ADDRESS Jt ^ ^ ^< ^ 





Glass Y^^^ 
Book .. 173 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF ASHEVILLE 

JULY 28, 1902 

UPON THE DEATH OF 

HONORABLE THOMAS DILLARD JOHNSTON 



BEING THE RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED 



AND 



THE MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



c 



' c_ 



2^ 



—S^ 



Iprocccdiitds of the IBnr of Bsbcvilk 



Meeting of the Buncombe County Bar in court room, 
Asheville, N. C, July 28th, 1902, in memory of Captain 
Thomas D. Johnston, deceased. 

Meeting called to order by Judge J. H. Merrimon. 

Report of Committee on Resolutions offered by Col, V. 
S. I^usk. Amendment offered by Gen. Theo. F. Davidson 
and accepted by Col. L,usk. 

Memorial address by John P. Arthur, Esq. 

Remarks by Gen. Theo. F. Davidson, Col. V. S. Lusk, 
Wm. R. Whitson, Rev. Frank Siler, Capt. J. M. Gudger, 
J. M. Gudger, Jr., and the chairman, Judge James H. 
Merrimon. 

Resolutions unanimously adopted by rising -vote." 

Gen. Theo. F. Davidson moves that Mr. Arthur be 
requested to furnish a copy of his address to the bar with a 
view to the suitable publication of the same, and that a 
committee of two be appointed by the chair to have charge 
of such publication. 

Motion unanimously adopted and Gen. Theo. F David- 
son and Rev. Frank Siler appointed as committee. 

This 28th day of July, 1902. 

Frank Carter, 

Secretary. 



Ificsolution 



That Whereas, in the Providence of an All-wise 
Creator who, in His wisdom, has removed from our midst 
our brother and fellow-citizen, Capt. Thomas U. Johnston, 
therefore be it 

Resolved, By the Bar of Buncombe County, that in 
the death of Capt. Thomas D. Johnston, the State of North 
Carolina has lost one of its most useful citizens, and the 
legal profession one of its bright intellects. 

That this resolution be preserved upon the minutes of 
the Superior Court of Buncombe County, and that a copy 
of the same be furnished to the family of the deceased, and 
that the daily papers of the city be requested to publish the 
same. 

V. S. LuSK, 
James H. Merrimon, 
Charles A. Moore, 
Theo. F. Davidson, 
Henry B. Stevens. 



^^ddrcss 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Bar : 

In speaking to these resolutions, some account of Captain 
Johnston's ancestors will be pertinent ; and it is pleasant to 
remember that no one valued them more highly than he. 
Though their lot was not cast on the shining heights of 
history ; nevertheless, as the pioneers of this section, they 
did well their part, and he not only remembered them with 
gratitude and respect, but he was proud of them. Those 
of us who were unacquainted with this country until the 
railroads brought us here, can form no conception of the 
trials and hardships the early settlers encountered when 
first they planted their roof-tree here. They subdued the 
forests, they built the roads, they established churches and 
schools ; and, although cut off from the world by almost 
impassible barriers, they maintained their civilization, their 
religion and their traditions unimpaired for more than a 
hundred years. To say nothing of those worthy citizens of 
Asheville whose characters are well known to us all. Henry 
W. Grady, who.se name is yet "loud upon the lip of the 
world," gloried in the fact that his grandfather, another 
Henry Grady, was a native and, for a time, sheriff of Bun- 
combe county. That zealous christian gentlemen and 
scholar. Rev. Frank Siler, who I am glad to see with us, is 
another descendant of those who 

" girdled the forest and drained the morasses. 

And builded of rude logs the Church and the Home — 
Clad in jeans and in buckskin, through drear isolation — 
Faith for the foundation and Love for the dome." 

I blame not New England for embalming in .story and in 
song the record of her worthy .sons ; but I tell you that no 
less worthy than they of a niche in the American pantheon 
she has erected to their memory are our own " Heroes of 



the Gun and Axe." Already are they apotheosized in the 
resplendent lustre of the lives of Clingman, Merrimon, 
Coleman, Woodfin and Vance, whose figures stand out in 
heroic proportions, and whose memory history w'ill never 
allow to perish from the memory of men. 

Thomas Dillard, for whom Captain Johnston was named, 
was the great-grandfather of the latter' s mother, a native 
of Pittsilvania county, Virginia, a colonel in the Revolu- 
tionary war, and one of the pioneers of Tennessee. Robert 
lyove, his mother's grandfather, was a native of Augusta 
county, Virginia, was reared in the home in which the 
blind preacher, Waddell, immortalized by William Wirt, 
was brought up, and with him was baptized at the old 
Presbyterian church near Staunton, yet known as the Tink- 
ling Spring meeting house. He, too, was an officer in the 
Revolutionary war and one of the pioneers of Tennessee, as 
well as of North Carolina. James Gudger, T. D. Johnston's 
grandfather, was of Scotch descent, and was for years 
prominent in the affairs of this section. 

William Johnston, the father of Thomas D. Johnston, 
was a native of Ireland and the fourth son of Robert John- 
ston, Sr., and was born on the 26th of July, 1807. His 
father, Robert, emigrated to this country, and with his 
family landed in Charleston, vS. C, in December, 18 18. His 
family came from Scotland during 164 1 and settled within 
two miles of Dromore, the county town of Down county, 
Ireland, at the Two Mile mill, which is sixteen miles from 
Belfast. His mother was a Willson. The mill where 
William Johnston's mother lived, and the dwelling in which 
William Johnston him.self was born, are of stont and are 
still in a good state of preservation, as is shown by photo- 
graphs of them which Captain Johnston caused to be taken 
when he visited Dromore, August 13th, 1895. It was on 
this trip that he purcha.sed the book containing the tartans 
or plaids of the various Scotch clans. Many of us recall 
the pleasure he took in showing the plaid or tartan of the 
clan Johnston and the photographs of the old homes, on the 
occasion of the reception given l)y him to Judge (iraham a 
few years ago. 

6 



William Johnston, coming to this section from his 
father's home in Pickens county, S. C, soon after his 
majority, married Lucinda, the daughter of James and 
Annie Gudger, March i8th, 1830, and settled in Waynes- 
ville, where he accumulated what was a large fortune for 
this section of the country. It has been remarked that the 
same business ability displayed by William Johnston, if 
exerted in almost any other field, would have produced 
results that would have rivaled those of some of our mer- 
chant princes. He was admittedly the most successful 
business man in this entire section of the state. 

Thomas Dillard Johnston himself was born at Waynes- 
ville, Haywood county, on the first day of April, 1840. 
Captain James N. Terrell, of Webster, N. C, writes me that 
Tom Johnston, when about ten years of age, attended a 
school taught by him in the old log school house at Waynes- 
ville, and that he was "even then noted for his close 
application and untiring diligence." In 1853 he came to 
Asheville and entered the school of Colonel Stephen Lee in 
Chunn's Cove, where he remained until the summer vaca- 
tion of 1857, and in the fall of that year entered the 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ; but, owing to 
too close application to his studies, his health failed and he 
was compelled to return to Asheville, to which place his 
family had removed, and were living in the brick dwelling 
that stood on the site now occupied by the Drhumor build- 
ing. He was a favorite at school, not only with the 
scholars, but with the master also. He was alone in some 
of his classes, and at the head of them all. He was not 
only an excellent mathematician, but an excellent classical 
scholar as well — a rare combination. The boys who boarded 
at the school were called " Lowlanders," while those who 
did not board at the school were called " Town-boys." As 
will sometimes happen, a feud or rivalry arose between the 
Ivowlanders and the Town-boys, and a champion having 
been selected by either faction to represent it in the wage 
of battle agreed upon, Tom Johnston was chosen by both 
sides to act as umpire. There was never any appeal from 
his decision, the beaten boy being so well satisfied with the 



final settlement of the dispute that he remembered his 
thrashing for forty years, and spoke of it on his last visit to 
Asheville, only a few years before his own death. 

After regaining his health, Thomas D. Johnston began 
the study of law with the late Hon. James L. Bailey, at his 
retreat near the foot of Black mountain, where he remained 
till the summer of 1861, when he obtained license to prac- 
tice law in the county court. 

During the spring of that year there was intense political 
excitement in this vicinity over the question of Union or 
Secession, due to the action of South Carolina in the 
previous December in declaring the Union dissolved and 
herself a " free, sovereign and independent state." At this 
time a debating society was formed by the young men of 
Asheville for the purpose of discussing this momentous 
question, and William Johnston having been, what has 
since come to be called, an "old line Whig," his son, 
Thomas D., naturally espoused the cau.se of the Union. 
But, Fort Sumter having fallen and the president having 
called upon North Carolina to furnish her quota of the 
75,000 troops to be used in restoring the authority of the 
United States in the territory of the .seceeding states, his 
sentiments underwent a total change. In April, 1861, a 
mass meeting was to have been held in the court house for 
the di.scussion of this queston, and Tom Johnston had pre- 
pared a strong Union speech for the occasion ; but when 
the stage from Greenville arrived with the news that the 
president intended to coerce a .sister state, everyone was for 
secession and for standing by South Carolina and tho.se 
states which had followed her out of the Union. 

Thomas D. Johnston cast in his fortunes with the cau.se 
of State's Rights, and in May, 1861, enlisted as a private in 
the Rough and Ready Guards, the second Asheville compa- 
ny to enter the service of the new Confederacy. He was 
soon elected third .sergeant. After camping and drilling at 
various points in this State and Virginia, this company went 
into winter quarters at Burwell's bay on the James river, 
nineteen miles alcove Norfolk. Ivarly in the spring of 1862 
they moved acro.ss James river, to the mouth of Warwick 

8 



river, where they had their first taste of real war, being under 
fire from canon and pickets from that time till the battle of 
Williamsburg. While in front of Yorktown, (where they 
occupied the crest of a hill which, from the indications of 
old fortifications, had been occupied by Washington or 
Cornwallis in ij8i,) the twelve months for which the men 
of this company had enlisted expired. Upon the re-organ- 
ization, T. D. Jolinston was elected second lieutenant and 
James M. Gudger, H^^q.. captain of the Rough and Ready 
Guards, and P. W. Roberts of Asheville, colonel of the 
14th N. C. Infantry, of which this company was a part. 
Then, in quicker succession than those of Napoleon's cam- 
paigns in Italy, followed the drama of war in which our 
friend took part. Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Mechanics- 
ville, Gaines' Mill, Frazier's Farm and Malvern Hill are the 
battles in which L,ieut. Johnston participated and they are 
enough to entitle him to the name of soldier. Beyond the fact 
that he was wounded three times at Malvern Hill, I have 
been unable to learn anything of Captain Johnston's exper- 
iences in those stirring times, except that he was acting as 
adjutant of the 14th N. C. when he was wounded. Even the 
Confederate Anchises who bore him from that bloodiest field 
of the war has been forgotten, if indeed he was ever known. 
Captain Johnston was not the man to boast of his bravery ; 
but the fact that he received three wounds in quick succes- 
sion in that battle proves that he must have had "a place in 
the picture, near the flashing of the guns." Although 
these wounds were not at first considered dangeroUvS, seri- 
ous blood-poisoning set in, and he was removed to his fath- 
er's home, here, where for five or six months, he hung be- 
tween life and death. To the skill of the late Dr. J. F. E. 
Hardy and the ministrations of such kind and gentle nurses 
as his mother and sisters was his recovery mainly due. 

Of his subsequent war record, Capt. Terrell writes : "As 
.soon as he was at all able for duty he accepted the appoint- 
ment of quartermaster to Col. W. C. Walker's battalion of 
infanlr\ and Cnpt. J. T. Ltv) s battt-r> of artillery. I was 
at the .-anu- linic- (piaittri nia>tci of Col. Ja^. R. Trove's rcg- 
iuKiii .-f the same command. This threw us almost con- 



stantly together, and when the Confederate government 
'unhorsed' regimental quartermasters, both of our commis- 
sions were saved by his appointment as commissary to the 
entire command and myself as quartermaster, which station 
we occupied to the end of the war." 

Although the close of the war found him still an inva- 
lid, he resumed the study of the law with Judge Bailey, his 
former preceptor, at Asheville now, in the little brick office 
that formerly stood on South Main street, on the northwest 
corner of the lot now known as the Penniman property, 
where he studied till March, 1866, when he obtained from 
Chief Justice Pearson, at his home in Yadkin county, li- 
cense to practice in all the Courts of the State. He imme- 
diatel}' set about building up a practice, attending all the 
courts in what was then the twelfth judicial district. He 
appeared in many cases, and tried them with skill and judg- 
ment. He brought to the investigation of all his cases a 
con.scientious desire to discharge his full duty, and no client 
ever complained that he did not discharge that duty with 
scrupulous care. He was an active practitioner, and was 
building up a large and substantial practice, to which he 
was giving great attention. He was a sound adviser and a 
trusted lawyer. He was universally liked on the circuit, 
was always cheerful and the life of the party. His father's 
large business affairs required his attention at courts from 
Asheville to Murphy, and from Columbia to Georgia, and 
he found it necessary to form a co-partner.ship with Hon. 
George A. Shuford, which continued from 1880 to 1885. 

At the very first pretence of an election after the war, 
he ran in spring of 1867 against Col. \'. S. Lusk for county 
solicitor, before the board of magistrates of Buncombe 
county, but was defeated ; and in the spring of 1868 for so- 
licitor of the twelftli judicial district again.st Col. Lusk, and 
was again defeated. In 1S69 he was elected mayor of Ashe- 
ville, the first democratic ma\or after the war. In 1870 he 
was nominati-d b\- the democratic part>- for the legislature. 
He was nominated thirty days before the election, and for 
exactly thirt\' da>s he never went home once, but remaintd 
in the can\ass, going from house to house, encouraging, 

10 



beseeching the white men to take heart and go to work. If 
he saw two or three men together on the road or in a field, 
he would ask for ten or fifteen minutes, and there, in the 
blazing sun of July — for the elections then took place in 
August — he would in a few terse, pregnant sentences pre- 
sent to them the cause he advocated. Old men say there 
never was such a canvass seen in Buncombe county. He 
never rested day or night. Snatching a hasty meal wher- 
ever he found one ready, and never waiting to have one 
prepared, he was off and away to the nearest house or field 
where a voter or a voter's wife or mother could be found, 
or to keep an appointment to debate with his opponent, 
who was the Hon. W. G. Candler, an able and experienced 
campaigner and stump-speaker, who has since crossed 
swords with the best fencers in debate on the democratic 
side, and has always held his own with credit. It was with 
this same doughty gentleman that he canvassed the 9th Con- 
gressional District, as it was then constituted, on the ques- 
tion of holding a State Convention to amend the Constitu- 
tion in April, 187 1, which the people voted down. In 1875 
they also discussed, on opposite sides, the availability of the 
candidates for the State Convention to amend the Consti- 
tution of the State which the I,egislature had called, and to 
which Buncombe county elected the late Hon. T. L. Cling- 
man and David Coleman as delegates, over the candidates 
of the republican party. Col. Candler writes that though 
he was pitted against Captain Johnston in these hotly con- 
tested campaigns there was never the slightest personal mis- 
understanding or friction between them, and that the latter 
was as friendly to his republican opponent on the day of his 
death as he had been when they both had been whigs before 
the commencement of the civil war. 

Capt. Johnston was elected to the legislature in 1870 by 
a large majority, and his record was so satisfactory to the 
people of Buncombe county that they again elected him in 
1872, his opponent in this race having been that peerless 
Saladin of deljate, the late Hon. Marcus Erwin, of whom 
Hon. Z. B. Vance said, that he was the most dangerous 
man to meet on the hustings of anyone he had ever 
encountered. Captain Johnston's party wished him to run 

II 



again in 1874, but business affairs prevented his acceptance 
of this great honor. However, in 1S76, when the prospects 
for the completion of the W. N. C. R. R. were exceedingly 
gloomy, his party nominated him for state senator (the 
district consisting of Madison and Buncombe counties) on 
a platform insisting that the state should make immediate 
appropriation of convicts and money for the early comple- 
tion of that road, and he was elected over his republican 
competitor, Hon. W. R. Trull, and the independent candi- 
dacy of the late Col. John A. Fagg, by the largest majority 
the district had given any candidate. He drafted, intro- 
duced and advocated to its passage the bill that gave to 
Western North Carolina its railroad. 

During his first term in the house he was on the judiciary 
committee that, on the 19th day of December, 1870, reported 
resolutions to impeach Gov. W. W. Holden, and was one 
of the managers of the impeachment proceedings. In 1870 
he began to push the legislation necessary for the comple- 
tion of the railroad, and continued to do so till, in the 
senate, he saw his six years of patriotic labor crowned with 
success. He did what he could to recover back for the 
state the railroad bonds which had been misapplied by 
George W. Swepson and W. W. Littlefield, and was instru- 
mental in securing the adoption of much important legisla- 
tion in the interest of the state and Buncombe county. In 
the language of one who was well acquainted with his 
entire career (J. H. Merrimon) he did more to develop the 
resources of Western North Carolina than any other man. 
From 1878 to 1884 he was not himself a candidate for any 
office, but in each intervening contest he took an active part 
in the interest of the candidates and measures advocated by 
the democratic party. In the latter year h was nominated 
for congress b}- the democratic party at a convention which 
was notable as having been the largest and most represen- 
tative that had ever assembled in what was then the Ninth 
Congre.s.sional District, after a long and spirited contest 
with the friends of the late (len. Robert B. Vance and 
James L. Robinson, of Macon. His republican opponent 
before the people was Hon. Hamilton G. Kwart, of Hender- 

12 



sonville, whom he defeated. Capt. Johnston was renomi- 
nated in 1886 by acclamation, and defeated the late Hon, 
W. H. Malone by an increased majority. In 1888 he was 
again renominated bj' acclamation, and Judge Ewart was 
again his opponent ; ' ' but the session of congress was pro- 
longed that year till late in the fall, and Captain Johnston 
was detained in his seat and unable to participate with his 
usual personal activity in the work of the campaign," and 
although he was ably represented by the late Hon. Eugene 
D, Carter, it was soon evident that he would be defeated 
unless he should speedily return ; but important legislation 
was pending in congress, a large number of democrats had 
already left their seats to attend to their own re-election, 
and the party needed every man at his post. 

Captain Johnston was willing to withdraw as a candi- 
date if the congressional committee of his party thought it 
wise, but having been elected to serve his term in congress, 
and not upon the stump in North Carolina in an effort to 
secure a third term, he remained steadfastly at his post of 
duty, although he saw defeat staring him in the face. 
When, in October, he was finally permitted by the adjourn- 
ment of congress to return to his district, he soon saw that 
the day was already lost. It could be saved in one way, 
and one way only, and that was by the expenditure of a 
large sum of money among the floating or purchasable 
voters of the district. This was made perfectly plain to 
him, and although he was a proud and sensitive man, yet, 
not even to avert this great humiliation, would he consent 
that one dollar be used for the corruption of a single voter. 
And he would not be hoodwinked. He knew from his 
experience in two previous campaigns about what the legit- 
imate expenses of the canvass should be, and could not be 
induced to shut his eyes and allow a single dollar to be used 
otherwise. That he had all the money he needed for such 
a purpose, that he would a thousand times rather spend it 
than be defeated if he could do so without corrupting the 
very fountain-head of republican institutions, is too well 
recognized to be stated. And yet his party stood manfully 
by him, and although he was defeated, he polled more votes 

13 



than in either of his two previous campaigns, and several 
hundred more than the Hon. Grover Cleveland, then a can- 
didate for second term as president. 

To me Captain Johnston's conduct on this occasion con- 
tains the greatest and most important lesson of his life ; and 
if this government is not to become a plutocracy, it behooves 
us to heed it well. The man who uses money to purchase 
votes is twenty times more corrupt than the poor wretch 
who takes it ; for he is a traitor to republican institutions 
and a cowardly assassin of democratic freedom. That it is 
a plain violation of a salutary law is universally admitted ; 
that it should be condemned by public and private opinion, 
and punished more severely than the violation of any other 
law, is also conceded ; that it is almost universally practiced, 
at least by connivance, by almost every candidate in the 
United States, is strongly suspected ; and that it will prove 
the downfall of the republic I greatly fear. 

' * Crowns of ro.ses fade, but crowns of thorns endure : 
Calvaries and Crucifictions take deepest hold upon human- 
ity ; " and while other men have been elected to congress 
and other men will continue to be elected to that high 
ofl&ce, Thomas Dillard Johnston was the only one of whom 
I have knowledge who ever refused success because he 
would not purchase it at the price of what he believed, if 
persisted in, would result in " chains and slavery" for his 
country. That was his crucifiction, that his calvary, and 
he deserves to be remembered longer by it than by an}- other 
act of his spotless life. 

Of Captain Johnston's career in congress I need not 
speak : it is written in the Congressional Record, and needs 
no embeli-shment, apologj^ or vindication. He was always 
at his desk, he answered every roll-call, he took part in 
many of the debates, and voted with his party every time. 
He was a favorite with his fellow congressmen and with 
the senators. He was al.so well liked by President Cleve- 
land. He attended to the business of his constutents in 
Washington as faithfully as if it had been his own; "and 
to his persistent energy the people of Asheville and West- 
ern North Carolina owe the legislation which secured for 

14 



them a federal building, which is not only an ornament to 
the City in which it stands, but a recognition of the dignity 
and importance of the section of whose vast interests it 
becomes the concrete exponent." In the opinion of many 
he was the best congressman this section has ever had. 

Captain Johnston's defeat for Congress was the end of his 
political and public career. There was but one other public 
or semi-public utterance from him after that, which was to 
let it be known that he opposed the repudiation by 
Buncombe county of the bonds it had issued in aid of the 
construction of the Spartanburg and Asheville R. R. He 
would profit more by their repudiation than any other citi- 
zen of the county; but he favored paying the bonds, never 
mind by what sort of legal technicality that duty might be 
evaded. 

He died at the Mission Hospital, Asheville, June 23rd 
igo2. 

Such, in as few words as I have been able to sketch it, 
is an outline of the career of a man of whom his most inti- 
mate friend, one who had known him since he was five 
years of age, and been associated with him all his life, 
Captain James N. Terrell, has tersely said: "that in each 
and every aspect of his character he was better than his 
repictatio7i, and however much the people relied on him, he 
was more to be trusted than they knew. And so, with 
every good quality which he had, he was more sincere, 
more honest, more earnest, more devoted and more religi- 
ous than the people thought." No man could pay a higher 
tribute to his friend than that- no man could more richly 
deserve it than T. D. Johnston. 

W. Ben Clayton, another old friend, has said of him : 
"Charitable words were ever at his tongue's end, charitable 
deeds were ever at his fitiger'send: swift feet to run errands 
of mercy for his fellow men." 

In his private life Captain Johnston was a dutiful son, a 
faithful husband and an affectionate father. He was a loyal 
friend and although slow to take men fully into his confi- 
dence, once his trust was secured, his friendship was like 
unto Jonathan's love for David, "passing the love of 

15 



women." He was cautious and just in forming his opin- 
ions of men and measures, and as long as a doubt remained 
he would not decide; but once his mind was made up, he 
was as inflexible as the granite rock. He was a most com- 
panionable man, and though sometimes so racked with 
pain himself as to be almost in agony, he looked on the 
bright side of things, and did his utmost to make and keep 
them bright and cheer}- for all about him. He was a good 
neighbor, a kind and considerate host, and a public spirited 
law-abiding citizen. He was a modest man; and, in his 
own wa}', he was a charitable man; but he did "not his 
alms l)efore men to be seen of them." He was too brave to 
be bullied or cajoled into giving to any cause of which he 
did not approve or of the merits of which he was ignorant, 
but once he was convinced of its worthiness, no man was 
more liberal. He educated more young men than any 
other man of whom I have any knowledge, but he was so 
considerate and tactful, and withal so fearful that he would 
be found out in this good work, that even his confidential 
friend and agent, Judge Shuford, was strictly enjoined not 
to admit or speak of it to any one or for any purpose what- 
ever. Not wishing the recipients of this aid to think that 
they were in the receipt of charity, he invariably treated all 
sums advanced for their education and support while at 
school or college as a loan, and required each young man to 
give his note, to be paid with interest whenever he should 
be in a position to do so. While he was in Congress he had 
no le.ss than four young men in college at his expense at 
one time, and although a candidate for re-election, not a 
whisper of it was ever allowed to escape to the public. He 
was a splendid business man, and his large affairs were 
managed with more system and le.ss machinery than any 
other estate of its size I ever heard of. He was too earnest 
ever wantonly to "sport with Amaryllis in the .shade or 
with the tangles of NeaL^ra's hair," but he, nevertheless, 
enjoyed, as only a good man can. tla- society of good women. 
He was a great favorite in that small .social circk- which 
was so delightful in .\slKvilK l)cfort. Ashtvillc look on the 
propoitions an I tlu- .lii - of ,i city, and was alwax - ih- h'fe 



of any gathering in which he happened to be. His wit and 
humor were bright and sparkling, and many of his bon 
mots are still remembered and repeated by those who knew 
him best. He was the soul of honor, and his word was 
even better than his bond, which everyone knows was as 
good as gold. 

For the past ten or twelve years he was much more 
charitable and forgiving towards those who in his opinion 
had wronged him, and in the quiet and seclusion of the 
Pastor's study, and in the most unostentatious manner possi- 
ble, connected himself with the Methodist church during 
the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. Chreitzburg. Mindful of the 
force of example, he was never seen to enter or leave a bar- 
room, and no one ever heard him utter a profane or vulgar 
word. He was an ardent lover of the beauties of nature, 
and delighted to watch "the black tempest marching in 
anger in the distance," or Aurora, "and the wild team 

That love her, waiting for their yoke, arise. 

And shake the darkness from their loosened manes, 

And beat the twilight into flakes of fire." 

lyike other earnest, virile natures, he may have been 
assailed with doubts upon religion; but from the fact that 
he was a member of and for years a constant attendant 
upon the services at the Methodist church, we may feel 
assured that whatever those doubts may have been, he had 
resolved them all in favor of the essential truth and reality 
of orthodox religion. It is certain that he did not hold 
with those who profess to believe that we "die like the dull 
worm to rot," and we may well suppose that he echoed the 
compassionate and sympathetic thought of N. P. Willis 
for those unhappy characters and their hopeless creed: 

"Ah, if there were not better hopes than these ! 

Were there no heaven in whose wide air 

The spirit may find room, and in the love 

Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart 

May spend itself, what thrice mocked fools are we !" 

In his public life his conduct may well be taken as a 
model for the younger men of this day to follow. In the 

17 



first place, he believed in the intelligence, the integrity and 
the good intention of the common people. He believed 
that if they were fully informed upon any public question 
they could be depended on to vote for whichever side had 
the more merit. He never deceived them. He would not 
resort to the expedient of the hour, but believed in dealing 
openly and honestly upon all occasions. He prepared his 
speeches with great care and after deep thought and care- 
ful investigation. He gave the people something to think 
about, and enlivened his speeches with sparkling wit and 
apt stories. He kneXv that the man who would sell him- 
self for a dollar would sell his purchaser for a dollar and 
five cents. He was always ready in debate, and never 
evaded any issue that arose: his satire was keener than a 
scimitar. The time of his greatest political activity was 
during the transition period from war to peace and the 
social, political and economic problems with which he had 
to grapple were of collossal proportions, and for which the 
past held no precedents to serve as guides. He and his 
contemporaries had to blaze their own paths through un- 
precedented difficulties and bewildering complications. 
Owing to his sense of political honor his wealth was a 
hindrance rather than a help to him; and the political Jack 
Sheppards and Rob Roys of the day, for whom he would 
not stand and deliver, secretly traduced and denounced 
him. But he was "not afraid of any secular or ecclesiasti- 
cal beggar or dead-beat on the face of the earth;" and he 
would not consort with low men for their votes or political 
influence. He was no mere political dillitante, beguiling a 
few idle hours by playing at the facinating game of state- 
craft, but an honest, earnest, conscientious, purposeful 
statesman. His conscience was the inexorable guardian 
of his conduct and, guided by it, his mind kept ever on the 
mountain top of lofty purpose. 

Captain Johnston was no mere place-hunter. He sought 
office from a deep and abiding sense of duty. He never 
held an office in his life except at a personal and pecuniary 
sacrifice? What then was the actuating cause of his intense 
political activity for more than twenty-three years ? The 

i8 



answer is not far to seek. The North thought there was no 
way by which the freedom of the negro could be made secure 
except by investing him with the ballot and taking it from 
his old master, who was formerly the leader of the South. 
That this policy was the gravest mistake ever committed 
in America is now seen by all; but at the time that it was 
being put into force the Southern people were disheartened 
by the war, and many were disposed to accept the situation 
and bow to what seemed the inevitable. He saw then, 
what only a few years later the New England-born gover- 
nor of South Carolina, the Hon. Daniel H. Chamberlain, in 
his ringing words admitted, when he bravely refused to 
commission the negro Whipper and the thief Moses, both 
of whom had been duly and legally elected judges by a 
negro legislature; that ''the civilization of the Purita7i and 
Cavalier, of the Roundhead and Huguenot ivas in danger.'"' 
He did not hesitate for one instant. The old Scotch blood 
that had come down to him from the clans of Coloden was 
tingling in his veins to the echo of the bagpipe and the wail 
of the pibroch that had thrilled his ancestors since the 
days of William Wallace and the Bruce of Bannockburn; 
and ringing over heath and moorland, and over three 
thousand miles of billowy ocean, was pealing the slogan of 
war in his undaunted soul. Aye, and from the battle-fields 
of old Virginia, where alread> his young blood was blossom- 
ing into blue-bell and violet, and where the man for whom 
he was named had fought on almost the self same spot in 
the struggle for Independence more than three quarters of 
a century before; from Cowan's Ford aud Guilford's Field, 
where another of his ancestors had fought in the same 
glorious cause, came the summons to do or die. The armies 
of Johnston and I^ee were broken and gone, and could not 
be summoned forth again; but the semblance of liberty yet 
remained, and in spite of test-oath and martial law, the 
white people must rally once again. They could not lose: 
they must win. 

He did not stand alone. Ah, no. Around him stood 
W. P. Welch of Haywood, James L. Robinson of Macon 
and Theo. F. Davidson and James H. Merrimon of Bun- 

19 



combe, and scores of others to whom North Carolina owes 
a debt of gratitude she can never repay. 

These men were young soldiers then, but they are old 
soldiers now. The}- belong to a once large, but now rap- 
idly diminishing class of men whom we have come to regard 
almost with the eyes of indifference — the Confederate vete- 
ran. With modest mein and uncomplaining speech they 
come and go, gray veterans, with bent forms and frosty 
locks, and the ashes of age supplanting the roses of youth, 
that but a little while ago blushed on beardless cheeks. 
The eyes that blazed with the battle-light of Seven Pines 
and Missionary Ridge look out upon these smiling plains 
and everlasting hills, but they are dim and almost sightless 
now. The daring hearts of many of them that charged up 
the heights of Gett\ sburg, are contending with a deadlier 
foe than shrapnel, bayonet or minnie ball. Cold and hun- 
ger and disease are drawing their deadly parallels ever 
nearer. They can hear the sapper and miner digging be- 
neath redan and counterscarp as distinctly as they heard 
them in the trenches in front of Petersburg in the dread 
winter of .sixty-five; but no counter-mine that they can con- 
struct, no desperate sally that they can make can much 
longer keep the unseen eneni}' from his prey. They dili- 
gently pursue the paths of peace, and watch the world go 
past them as in a dream. They are being rapidly left be- 
hind. Their children have grown up and left them, and it 
may even be that the patient partners of their lives are 
sleeping out yonder in unmarked graves, and the ashes on 
their hearths are cold and gray. The State does not even 
promise them a grave, save in the Potter's field, and the fit- 
ful slumber of old age is haunted by the nightmare of pov- 
erty, and cold and loneliness. They do not murmur ; but, 
ah, they cannot forget. Would they could, for tiny arc 
often made to feel that they are forgotten and cast aside. 
Nothing was too good for the gallant boys who marched up 
the storied Swannanoa, fotty-one years ago, to whistling 
fife and throbl)ing drum, iK-neath the bright banners that 
the girls they left i)ehind them had made from their danti- 
■ est gowMis and cml)r()i(lered b\- the work of their deft fin- 

20 



gers. They were offering to lay down their lives for you 
and me, in a cause that was yours and mine. They were 
broken on the wheel of war in the cause the State had made 
its own ; in the cause of the party of State's Rights. The 
right to protect and support, in the stress of poverty and 
old age, the soldiers who have shed their blood and wrecked 
their health in the service of the State, is a right, to its 
honor be it said, with which the Federal Government has 
never sought to interfere, albeit the triumph of the cause 
for which they fought would have involved the destruction 
of that government itself. 

But to-day, in the noon-tide of her prosperity, with her 
government in the undisputed control of the sons and kin- 
dred of these veterans, with a tax rate less than that of al- 
most any other State in the restored Union, and with re- 
sources of wealth almost unlimited, the grand old State of 
North Carolina is paying her chief executive four thousand 
dollars a year, and her totally disabled Confederate soldier 
seventy-two ! Six dollars a month is considered sufficient 
for the support of the totally disabled survivors of that glo- 
rious band, and from one to five dollars for those who still 
can drag their enfeebled bodies through corn-row and to- 
bacco patch. 

Standing almost over the open grave of one these sol- 
diers who, while ' wearing the white flower of a blameless 
life," shed his blood on Malvern Hill, and who did not need 
a pension, I would be recreant to his memory if I did not 
plead for those left behind him who do need it every day 
and every hour. In his name, in the name of our common 
humanity, in the name of outraged justice, in the name of 
violated patriotism ; yes, and in a purer, holier name than 
any af these, in the sacred name of the saintly women of the 
South, who bound up his wounds in war, and knelt in 
prayer beside his lowly pallet in reeking hospital and sor- 
row-stricken home, and whose tender hearts and gentle 
hands are still active in his service, I ask the new leaders of 
the New South to remember the old soldiers of the Old 
South. Their ranks are thinning fast. The last long-roll 
beats for some of them every day. Soon there will not be a 



21 



single veteran left to need our grudging bounty ; soon all 
will have passed over the river to rest with Stonewall Jack- 
son "beneath the shade of the trees," where blossom only 
"the lilies of eternal peace, whose odorshaunt our dreams." 

Remember the scant ration of parched corn and tepid 
branch water ; remember the long, hard, hot marches be- 
neath the blazing suns of summer ; remember the short 
nights of troubled sleep upon the tentless field and in the 
sultry thicket, with fence rails for a pillow, and the dread 
reveille of musketry and cannon for their awaking. Re- 
member the winter camp upon the frozen ground ; remem- 
ber the letters from home that told between the lines of pri- 
vation, hardship and sickness, and barefoot children singing 
beside their wan mothers, " When this cruel war is over ;" 
remember the lonel}' hours upon the cheerless picket line, 
when they " thought of the two in the low trundle bed, far 
away in the cot on the mountain." 

I confess to keen sense of personal humiliation that I, 
who bore no part in the war, should feel constrained to re- 
mind men of Southern blood and birth of these things. Can 
it be that these sacrifices are already forgotten ! And by 
Southern men ! Be sure, my friends, that the world has 
not forgotten, and that our children will ?iol forget, "for as 
long as the Southern struggle shall linger in tradition and 
in song will their memory be cherished by the descendants 
of the Southern race." Of them Henry Ward Beecher 
truly said, that 'they followed their disunion flag to wounds 
and death as simply and as bravely as if it had been the Ban- 
ner of the Cross and they the old Crusaders." 

History holds no page one-half so refulgent as the re- 
cord of the Private Soldier of the Southern Confederacy. 
In neglecting him, we dishonor ourselves and asperse the 
memory of Davis and Jackson and I^ee. 

When our children gather around the winter hearth- 
stone to hear the wonder-tale of Chicamauga, Chanccllors- 
ville, the Bloody Angle, Gettysburg and Malvern Hill, 
what shall we tell them was the measure of our gratitude to 
the men who stood beneath the bat-winged pall of Ai)po- 
matox ? What shall we say we did for the tattered rem- 

22 



IE N '10 



nant that, after returning to build up the waste places of 
the South, found that they must still for twenty years carry 
on a warfare for civilization ? What shall we say we were 
doing for those men who had done so much for us, when 
forty years after Malvern Hill, they could do for themselves 
no longer ? Shall we point to this niggardly allowance, 
and tell them that we turned our backs upon these wrecks 
of war and left them to .'^tarve upon the husks of this pit- 
tance? Shall we confess that we allow on an average forty 
cents a day for the support of the malefactors and convicts 
of the State and ten cents for these suffering, struggling, 
law-abiding citizens of North Carolina ? 

In their name — in the name of the unborn children of 
the South — whose hearts are j^et to thrill with the story of 
the valor of the Confederate Soldier, I ask you to tear from 
the pension laws of North Carolina the black page that wit- 
nesses to her dishonor, and to enact in its s^ead, before it be 
forever too late, that brighter one, which our children and 
our children's children to latest posterity may turn with 
reverent hands and blister with the tears of joy and pride 
and gratitude. 

No review of the life of Thomas D. Johnston would be 
complete that did not include some reference to the wife of 
his bosom — one of the most devoted wives and mothers I 
ever met. On the loth day of July, 1879, he married Miss N. 
Leila Bobo, a daughter of the late Hon. Simpson Bobo, of 
Spartanburg, S. C, for a long time prominent in the affairs 
of the Palmetto state. No union could have been happier ; 
for if they had been sweethearts in the morning of life, 
surely they were lovers when the shadows began to lengthen 
towards its close. She made his life as nearly happy as it 
was possible for it to be in the nature of things ; and, best 
of all, he knew her worth and devotion while she was liv- 
ing, and made her feel every hour what a support and com- 
fort and joy she was to him. 

As she once said, religion is the simplest thing in the 
world. It is certain that it was .so to her, for she had 
no doubts whatever, and I believe that she really had 
the " peace that pas.seth understanding." The Bible, the 

23 



old Bible, the whole Bible was at once the foundation, the 
arch and the capstone of her religion, Everj^ word of it 
was true, every word of it was directly inspired by the 
living God. It had never been altered, abridged or added 
to by one jot or tittle. Its meaning was clear, its teachings 
plain, its promises true. Ah, who would not barter all his 
specious wisdom and learning for such a faith as hers ! 

But, ' ' y'Equo pede pidsat pallida Mors. ' ' 

For the past ten or twelve years Captain Johnston's 
health, never robust, had been very delicate, and but for 
her constant watchfulness and care, it is probable that it 
would have failed entirely long before the end finally came. 
And although for the past eighteen months her own health 
had been impaired, she never for one instant relaxed her 
vigilance over his. In his solicitude for her he had deter- 
mined to devote the whole of last spring and this summer 
to an effort to restore her to her wonted health, while their 
daughters should be absent in Europe. But being attacked 
by a malady before unknown to her, at Hot Springs, 
Arkansas, whither they had gone for benefit from their 
healing waters, in God's own appointed time, she slipped 
away in the season of the Easter lillies. 

It was the putting out of the light of his life. 

But, after a period of almost complete prostration, the 
needle of his being fluttered back to the pole-star of his life. 
Duty. He would not leave his daughters, who had hastened 
to his side, if by any sacrifice on his part, he could remain 
yet a little longer with them. 

In the progress of the disease with which he was afflicted, 
life had become unendurable without the soothing " touch 
of a vanished hand, and the .sound of a voice that 
was .still." But, by submitting to a dangerous .surgical 
operation, there was a hope ; and, putting all his affairs in 
order, he calmly, cheerfully, even hopefully, sul)mitted 
him.self to the surgeon's knife. 

For a few days he .seemed to be progre.s.sing favoral)ly ; 
l)Ut late one Sunday night, the 22nd of June, the vanished 
hand began to becon, and before the dawning of another 
day, we may well believe that he heard the sound of the 
voice that for nearly three months had been still, and he 
answered. 

24 



